The Incarnation—Why?

December 25, 1994

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Scripture: “For God so loved the world the He gave His only begotten Son...” John 3:16

Here’s the question before us this morning...WHY? We’ve been leading up to it all month...Why? Why would He do it? Why would He bother? Why would it be important enough to Him to take that kind of daring, decisive, dramatic action on behalf of a humanity which from the start had virtually thumbed its nose in His face? WHY?

The Incarnation, this unique doctrine of the Christian Faith---there’s nothing that even remotely approaches it in Islam, or Buddhism, or even Judaism, for that matter--- the Incarnation, the physical coming of God to earth, in the flesh... as much of the Godhead as could be stuffed into one human person.... the Incarnation is replete with mystery...at almost every point.

“God was in Christ”, we say...exactly what does that mean? So many questions surround it.

The timing of it makes you wonder---why then? Why at that particular time? The location of it seems strange---born in Bethlehem of Judea, of all places.... AND OF COURSE THE HOW OF IT SENDS THE MIND ABSOLUTELY REELING--- “Born of a virgin by the Holy Spirit”, said the early Church.... 20 centuries later we can still offer no more definitive explanation.

Winston Churchill called the old Soviet Union a riddle inside an enigma inside a conundrum. The mystery surrounding almost every aspect of the Incarnation is thicker than that. But the details, the particulars, the specifics of the Event... the WHAT, WHEN and WHERE, seem somehow more manageable, more plausible, and even more fitting when you begin to be grasped by the size and scope of the heart behind it all. If you can accept that there is a WHY to the story, you can accept the rest with relative ease.

We’re talking motive here...what’s going on behind the scenes, in back of the curtain, only the culmination of which we see in the rustic manger of Bethlehem.

In detective novels, motive always plays a key role. I guess it does in real life crime, too, but my personal experience here is more vicarious. In all the detective stories I know anything about, Father Brown, Hercule Poirot, and Jessica Fletcher, all those great intuitive minds, spend a lot of time thinking about motive. Who stands to benefit from this crime?

Whose position will be enhanced by the removal of the victim? That’s important. If you know the WHY of a situation, you can get a better handle on the successive developments.

Well, it’s the same at the other end of the moral spectrum, too. Actions, both good and evil, largely are the fruit of intent. Jesus obviously knew that.

“Out of the heart are the issues of life”, He said. “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” He knew that if people wanted the right things, they’d allow those wants to lead them to the right choices.

The early Church, standing in awe before the Christ event...the Birth, Ministry, Crucifixion, Resurrection and Ascension of Jesus.... and then the coming in transforming power of the Spirit at Pentecost, LOOKED AT THE EVIDENCE, and asked HOW DO WE MAKE SENSE OUT OF THIS PHENOMENON?

What does it mean? What’s behind it all? Is the cruel, ugly, vindictive part of the story, the tragedy of the Crucifixion experience the key to the rest? Is everything else just illusion, and that part, with its display of hatred and narrowness the real truth about what endures?

Does that best explain what went on here? Is the meaning here that there is no meaning at all, that life itself, as in Hamlet’s line, is “a tale, told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing”? IS THAT THE FINAL TRUTH?

Or can we discern now, through all of this, the bad and the good, the painful and the powerful, the gruesome and the glorious, the playing out of a grand and majestic intent? Is there a motive involved, and if so, what is it?

And they finally said, in what must at first have been a hushed voice it was so big and so moving, “YES! THIS WHOLE THING FROM START TO FINISH IS THE PRODUCT OF GOD’S INFINITE, UNLIMITED CARING.... God’s caring, the Maker of heaven and earth’s caring. It’s more than a human hero story, more than an account of one brave soul, one lone intrepid battler against overwhelming odds.

Something BEYOND the heroic Jesus is here. THE FATHER HIMSELF IS IN THIS THING, in fact, STARTED it, and PROGRAMMED it.

Motive? Why? The most stunning part of all: IT WAS DONE FOR US. He concocted it, endured it, and brought it off for US, because HE CARES FOR US. Think what that means if it’s true.

In his book, Christian Doctrine, J.S. Whale quotes a reference from Richard Jeffries’ book, Bevis, the Story of a Boy. In that book, the protagonist is portrayed agonizing over the death of Jesus on Calvary. He sits studying a picture of the scene.... Writes Jeffries: “The Crucifixion hurt his feelings very much; the cruel nails; the unfeeling spear; he looked at the picture for a long time, and then turned the page, saying, ‘If only God had been there; He would not have let them do it.’”

My stars! If only God had been there? That’s the point, the Church came to see. There’s the whole glory and mystery of the Incarnation, right there. The superstructure of our belief system as Christians, our faith as followers of the Lord Jesus Christ rests on the conviction that God WAS there, AND THAT SOMEHOW, THROUGH THAT ENTIRE PAIN-FILLED YET LUMINOUS LIFE OF JOY AND OBEDIENCE, GOD WAS PATIENTLY EXECUTING GOD’S MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION OF BRINGING GOD’S CHILDREN BACK HOME.

God’s been working on this thing all along, the Church said. God’s known what God was doing all along.... What’s been unfolding right here under our noses is not haphazard, or whimsical, or capricious... it’s not random, or reactive, or frenzied...it’s not a matter of God’s being up against a wall and having to do something out of desperation. IT’S PART OF A PLAN, a calculated, worked-out plan, by a Master Designer, whose motive---and here, I think, they really gasped at the sheer wonder of it----whose motive for doing all that was that GOD LOVES US.

John, the philosopher/poet, the dreamer among the Gospel writers, expressed it in simple eloquence. He stated it so well, in fact, that it has become probably the best known verse of the New Testament. You wouldn’t be far off calling it the key sentence of the Bible. Certainly it’s the verse that more than any other expresses as close as we can come to giving some kind of rationale to the motive question: “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

Does it clear up all the mystery? NO! Does it prove anything to the person who doesn’t want to believe it? NO! If you’re not already tuned in, the verse by itself may not even be very convincing. But what if John has it right about this motive thing? What if love really is the inexorable force at the heart of the universe? THE CHURCH BETS ITS LIFE ON IT.

Why did God deign to come to earth in human form? Why did God bother? Why Incarnation? I can only tell you what the Church came to believe, and if you want to argue that it’s too good to be true, I can only respond that it’s too good not to be true, and to call to witness for testimony those deepest inward feelings of the soul that somehow reach out in resonance with Jesus’ own assurance that what is at the very center of things is GOOD.

I remember the seemingly whimsical but fundamentally profound advice G.K. Chesterton offered prospective renters with respect to their landlords. He said the first question a renter ought to ask a landlord, or landlady, before even thinking of signing a lease, is not how much is the rent, or when is it due, or what are the accompanying amenities.... Before you get into any of that, he counseled you should ask your landlord, “What is your view of the universe?”

For, he said, unless there’s a belief in basic, underlying decency at the core of things, you can’t expect to get much anywhere else.

Is the universe basically benevolent? That’s the rock bottom question. Does the One who runs it, or Whatever Power runs it, care?

I’ll never forget one day in seminary...one particular day. I was in Mack Stokes’ class in Systematic Theology. Our text was Albert Knudson’s huge book, The Doctrine of God. That day in class we were discussing the classic arguments for the existence of God. You study that stuff in Systematic Theology.... You read Thomas Aquinas and Anselm.... Probably today you’d read Steven Hawking, or try to.

There’s the ontological argument, and the cosmological argument, and the teleological argument....I’m afraid I couldn’t tell you what they all are now if my life depended on it.

But I remember the stimulation of it, I can still recall the sense of exhilaration I felt as my mind was stretched by all those soaring ideas about the greatness and the vastness of the Cosmic Mind.

But that very afternoon, with my head still reeling from the morning’s stimulus, I went out to do some visiting for the church in which I was working as a student pastor. I had a list of names to call on, and I went out knocking on doors.

I went to the apartment of an old woman, whose name was on the membership roll, but who hadn’t come to church in a long time. I didn’t know her. When I found the address, in a seedy section of Atlanta, I knocked on the door, and heard a weak voice answering from inside. I opened the door and was immediately struck by the odor of filth. The woman was in bed, sick, alone...the apartment was dirty.

It looked like nobody else had been there for days. There was no food in the house, except for a few scraps of moldy bread. I did what I could on the spot, called for some help, arranged for her to get medical attention, and went to buy her a few groceries.... That experience, as you can imagine, with a slap of reality, did something to my sense of exhilaration. Somehow I didn’t feel so elated after that.

It’s one thing to talk about the Cosmic Mind. SO WHAT, if there is not also a COSMIC HEART.

That’s the question we want an answer to. What is the truth about what lies behind everything else? Does Anybody care? Is there nothing out there but unfeeling, bloodless, mechanical precision, or is there SOMEONE, someone personal, who hurts when we hurt who cries when we cry, who suffers when we suffer, and to whom what happens to us matters? The Incarnation answers that with a resounding YES...and even though we can’t prove it, we believe it, down to the very marrow of our bones. Our faith hangs on it.

God so loved the world that God came... that God identified, that God sent, that God GAVE.... John’s song of faith is the Church’s affirmation of the primacy of love in the conduct of the relationship between Creator and creation, a love that does more than just exist statically as benign neglect, but takes the initiative to woo and win the object of its affection...namely you...and you...and me.

Love is always doing fool things like that. Can you explain love? No, you can’t explain it. Why do you love somebody? Can you explain why? No, you can’t explain why. You just do, that’s all.

But when love is operative it finds a way to express itself, and that’s what the Incarnation means. The old saying “love laughs at locksmiths” probably didn’t come out of a theological context, but apply it to Christmas, and it lights up with a greater aptness than ever.

There’s no Incarnation in the Old Testament, of course, that’s pre-breakthrough material; but even there, when we look back on it through the prism of the Christ event, when we examine those early yearnings through the lens of the fullness of time, we see even there hints and foreshadowing of what lay ahead.

Some gifted, inspired writer, completely unknown to us by name, looking back over Israel’s history from the perspective of the late monarchy, mused thoughtfully about the WHY question with respect to God and God’s people...and wrote: “You are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord has chosen you out of all the peoples on earth to be His people, His treasured possession.”

Now, motive...Why? Ahh, he goes on, “It was not because you were more numerous than any other people that the Lord set His heart on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all people. IT WAS BECAUSE THE LORD LOVED YOU....that the Lord brought you out with a mighty hand, and redeemed you from the house of slavery....” What kind of talk is that? Set His heart on you because the Lord loves you? Loves you because the Lord loves you? What kind of logic is that? No logic at all except the logic of human experience.

Maybe it doesn’t make any sense, but it’s the way love is, the way love does. It acts that way when the intensity of it builds up. AND ONE COLD DECEMBER MORNING, 2000 years ago, God couldn’t hold it back any longer.

Maybe Incarnation does seem irrational and implausible, but when you know who God is, nothing surprises you anymore. As Karl Barth expressed it in an arresting sentence, “While God’s becoming man is not a matter of course, yet it can be justly considered as the most natural of all natural occurrences, (precisely) because it was GOD who became man in Jesus Christ.”

And so we stand this morning before this unprecedented manifestation of Divine love. Here at the manger all claims to merit and deserving fade into insignificance. Here any boasting of accomplishment is simply dissolved in a greater expression of worthiness.

The Lord God is with us to do for us what we could never do for ourselves, thank God, because God loves us.... Think of it.... The One who makes absolute demands on us offers freely to give us all that the One demands... The One who requires of us unlimited obedience supplies the obedience Himself. The One who calls us to work out our own salvation comes Himself, to give Himself that that working out may take place in our minds and hearts.... It’s almost overwhelming. Why would God do all that?

Why would God care enough to make that kind of commitment? I don’t know. Maybe the whole thing is the result of somebody’s contrived imagination. Maybe the whole thing is an illusion.

Maybe we should try to purge from our consciousness the power and lure of love... plunging ahead in selfish abandon, grabbing and holding on to whatever we can get. Maybe that’s the smartest response we could make.

Or maybe we should simply obey this strange tug that pulls our heart toward this Special Child...take John at his word, and fall on our knees in grateful adoration.

Dr. Richard Selzer is a surgeon, and he tells this story out of the experience of his own medical practice.

He was called on to perform a delicate operation on the cheek of a young woman. The operation was imperative because of a small tumor that was growing in her face. To get all the tumor, he had to cut away some healthy muscle and nerve. He was as careful as he could be, but it couldn’t be helped.

Though he followed the curve of her flesh with all the skill and precision he possessed, a tiny twig of facial nerve, the one to the muscles of her mouth, had to be severed, leaving her lips on one side twisted in palsy. She would live, she would recuperate, she would be well, but her mouth from then on would be misshapen.

The surgeon visited with the young woman in the recovery room following the operation. The husband was there, to give comfort and support to his wife. They were obviously a couple very much in love with each other. The young husband reached out to touch her gently.

Hear Dr. Selzer finished the story in his own words: “He stands by her side on the opposite side of the bed, virtually oblivious of my presence. Together, they seem to dwell in the evening lamplight, isolated from me, private. Who are they, I ask myself, he and this almost comical wry-mouth that I have made with  my scalpel.... Who are these people who gaze at and touch each other so generously and so greedily?

The young woman speaks: “Will my mouth always be like this?” she asks. “Yes”, I say, “I’m afraid so. It’s because the nerve had to be cut.”

She nods and is silent. But the young husband smiles. “You know”, he says, “I sort of like it. I think it’s cute.”

And all at once, I know who he is. It hits me and I lower my gaze.  One is not bold in the presence of a god. Unmindful, he bends to kiss her crooked mouth, and I so close, I can see how he twists his own lips to accommodate hers, and to show her that their kiss still works.”

MY GOD, WHAT LOVE IS THIS, EVEN ON THE HUMAN LEVEL, THAT WOULD CARE SO DEEPLY?

In reduced, miniature form, it’s the story of the Incarnation, the infinite God who bends down in unquenchable compassion to redeem God’s paralyzed world with a kiss. It may none of it be true...but what if it is?

Would you say the text with me, all together in unison.... “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

“For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord.”

GOD CAME FOR YOU...BECAUSE GOD LOVES YOU.

Joy to the world, the LORD is come.